Murder of Victoria Climbié
Torture and murder of a young child / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Victoria Adjo Climbié (2 November 1991 – 25 February 2000) was an eight-year-old Ivorian girl who was tortured and murdered by her great-aunt and her great-aunt's boyfriend. Her death led to a public inquiry, and produced major changes in child protection policies in the United Kingdom.
Murder of Victoria Climbié | |
---|---|
Location | London, England |
Date | 25 February 2000 |
Attack type | Child murder by freezing to death, torture murder, child abuse |
Victim | Victoria Adjo Climbié |
Perpetrators | Marie-Thérèse Kouao Carl Manning |
Motive | Resentment |
Verdict | Guilty on all counts
|
Sentence | Life imprisonment |
Convictions |
Born in Abobo, Côte d'Ivoire, Victoria Climbié left the country with her great-aunt Marie-Thérèse Kouao, a French citizen who later abused her, for an education in France where they travelled, before arriving in London, England, in April 1999. It is not known exactly when Kouao started abusing Victoria, although it is suspected to have escalated to torture when Kouao and Victoria met and moved in with Carl Manning, who became Kouao's boyfriend.
Victoria would be forced to sleep bound in a black bin-liner filled with her own excrement in an unheated bathroom. They burned her with cigarettes and scalded her with hot water, starved her, tied her up for periods longer than 24 hours, and hit her with bike chains, hammers, wires, shoes, belt buckles, coat hangers, wooden spoons, and their bare hands. Whenever she was fed, she would be forced to eat like a dog.[1] On some occasions the couple would throw food at her and make her catch it in her mouth.
Up to her death, the police, the social services department of four local authorities, the National Health Service, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), and local churches all had contact with her and noted signs of abuse. However, in what the judge in the trial following Victoria's death described as "blinding incompetence", all failed to properly investigate the case and little action was taken.[2] Both Kouao and Manning were convicted of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
After Victoria’s death, the parties involved in her case were widely criticised. A public inquiry, headed by Lord Laming, was ordered. It discovered numerous instances where Victoria could have been saved, noted that many of the organisations involved in her care were badly run, and discussed the racial aspects surrounding the case, as many of the participants were black.[3] The subsequent report by Laming made numerous recommendations related to child protection in England.
Victoria’s death was largely responsible for the formation of the Every Child Matters initiative; the introduction of the Children Act 2004; the creation of ContactPoint, a database that held information on the contacts of the various children's services with particular children (closed by the 2010 Coalition government); and the creation of the Office of the Children's Commissioner chaired by the Children's Commissioner for England.